


Captain Crash & the Beauty Queen from Mars

by ariaadagio



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Canon-insert, Drama, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-27
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:41:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariaadagio/pseuds/ariaadagio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post S4 finale. What happened after Derek left to breakup with Rose?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is my response to Daisy250's writer prompt to me, asking what happened after the house of candles scene at the end of S4. I've tried to fill in a lot of blanks with this fic, both nit-picky and obvious. See how many you can spot :) 
> 
> P.S. I've been told rather unkindly that this fic is a bit hateful toward Meredith. Please know that was not my intent. I had originally written this very similarly to how I'd written So Are You To Me (in which they both talk equally about how they fucked up and they come to terms with things). My beta reader called it SAYTM in jail. She suggested I spice it up and do something different, maybe by having Meredith be the bigger person and owning her faults first, even if Derek doesn't own his. I liked that idea, and I ran with it. My intent wasn't to *absolve* Derek of his own issues. Trust me, I think he has a truckload. I was trying to convey Meredith as the bigger person, not the worse person. And I certainly wasn't trying to heap all blame on her (Derek has more than his fair share if we're going to do a blow-by-blow). I think, though, that I dropped the ball in adequately conveying my mindset, though, for which I apologize.

Meredith waited on the hill with her house of candles for an hour before the last one went dark. She sighed. Derek lived in the middle of nowhere. She didn't know where Rose lived. It would take Derek at least forty-five minutes to get into town, let alone back out of it. And then there was the whole talking with Rose thing. Rose might be one of those women who wanted to analyze the breakup from every angle, and Derek would be stuck there combing through minutia with her until dawn. It was silly to worry already, and yet Meredith paced. Back and forth in the damp grass, she paced. Back and forth.

As late night fell into early morning, the chill seeped into her knuckles and toes. Her breaths clouded in the air. She shivered. Her dark coat wasn't sufficient for an all-nighter under the endless carpet of pinprick stars. Not in the winter.

_Wait for me_ , he'd said. _Don't move_ , he'd said.

She sighed and looked up as a cold breeze kissed her lips. Where Derek lived, she could see the white band across the sky formed by the Milky Way. The stars scattered like bits of broken glass on blacktop, twinkling. With her gaze, she traced Orion and the Big Dipper. Those were the two constellations she could always find because they were huge and hard to miss, even in the beautiful, crowded scatter of light above.

She smiled. This place was so Derek. He'd lived his life in Manhattan amidst the purple hues of light pollution. She wondered what he'd looked like when he'd first looked up. She imagined a peaceful, amazed smile splitting his face wide despite his melancholy. She imagined him standing in this very spot. On the cliff, overlooking the sea of luscious green turned black by the night. Blurry lights of civilization specked the valley below, but there were very few.

Derek Shepherd liked his space.

Another cold wind struck her so hard she swayed. She shivered and stamped her feet. She turned toward his trailer. She would wait like he'd asked. But if he expected her to literally not move for who knew how many hours this would be, he could forget a freaking relationship, because that was just mean.

She slogged through the grass, which reached up from the ground like earthy claws. The champagne bottle sloshed as she fought for her footing. Her sneakers stuck in the gelid mud and other crap. She churned through the dirt and passed Dr. Webber's dark trailer. He'd never come out to ask about the candles. From the lack of light and the absence of his car, she suspected he'd gone in to Seattle Grace or something.

She let herself into Derek's trailer. The door clicked shut behind her. He never locked the door. Where he lived, the only thieves he had to worry about were bears and... Well, just bears. Nothing else. Nobody in his right mind would case the joint for valuables. Derek had next to nothing for a man who'd lived forty-odd years. Clothes. Boots. A few odds and ends. Fishing gear. A grill. Some tools. Whatever. Not much worth a second look unless you were particularly interested in Derek.

The air inside the trailer was cold, but not as cold as outside. Her feet thumped on the floor, and she breathed. Derek. He lived in such a small space that his trailer always smelled like him. Soft. Clean. A bit spicy, like his aftershave. Uniquely him.

Her nerves unbundled as his mattress sank with her body weight. He hadn't made the bed. The sheets and blankets were turned back and hung in disarray. An indentation carved a dip into his pillow where he'd slept. She smiled at the stray dark hair he'd left on the pillowcase, and she stroked the soft surface with her palm.

She'd missed it here. In the quiet. In his space. With him. Her eyes watered when she thought of how close she'd come to never seeing it again, all because she'd been a stupid coward or whatever.

She kicked off her muddy shoes, and she lay down on his side of the bed. She pulled her cell phone from her coat pocket and put it and the champagne bottle on his nightstand with his clock and other familiar odds and ends. A dinged Swiss army knife that he liked. The iPod he left at home. A box of tissues. A few other things.

She thought about taking off her coat, but, as she shivered, she opted against it, and actually started to feel a little bad about all the times he'd mentioned sleeping alone out here without central heating. She'd never slept alone here. She'd always had him and his warm body. She knew he had some sort of space heater somewhere, but as a yawn overtook her, she decided she wasn't cold enough to find out where. Her coat and the blankets would be sufficient.

She inhaled. The pillow smelled like him. The sheets smelled like him. She grabbed the pillow from the far side and stuck that under her head. She grabbed the pillow he slept on and wrapped her body around it. She pulled the blankets up to her shoulders. Her shivering subsided.

“Derek,” she said as she snuggled with his pillow. It'd been a long, emotional day. Without any effort at all, she slept.

When she woke, she had no idea why, and for a minute, she hovered somewhere half-asleep, listening to the sounds of the wilderness outside. There were cracks and snaps of twigs breaking as wildlife moved through the dense foliage around the clearing. No crickets. Too cold. The wind whistled, and it sent a whisper through the leaves on all the trees.

What time was it?

When her phone rang again, she flinched and whacked haphazardly at the nightstand. His knife and the tissue box went flying. So did the champagne bottle. She found her phone before she did any damage to his iPod. She wiped her eyes and stared blearily. Derek, said the little liquid crystal display on the top of her phone. Underneath his name, the time glowed in pixelated, white lettering. 2:48AM. What the hell? Startled, she looked to the left. Stupid. She knew he wasn't there. She didn't have to look.

She flipped open the phone.

“Where the hell are you?” she said.

“Hello to you, too,” he said. She smiled at the rich, liquid sound of his voice, and she imagined him smirking.

“Sorry,” she said as she rolled onto her back. She stared up at the skylight into the blackness beyond. She saw no stars, even in the pitch black. She wouldn't. Not with the trees. “You want to tell me why it's almost 3AM, and you're still not back yet?”

He sighed, and she clenched the phone. That sigh was not a pleased one. What had happened with Rose?

“Meredith,” he said, his voice whisper soft. She barely heard him through the crackle of her crappy reception. In person, when he said her name like that, it had a calming effect. Like soothing music, or the crash of waves. He said her name with a worshipful, adulate tone that relaxed her from the roots of her teeth all the way down to her pinky toes. It didn't work between two cell phones, though. Not one bit. He continued, slightly louder, “I don't want you to get upset, but--”

“But what?” she blurted, interrupting him as worry overtook her. “You broke up with Rose, right? You're not calling to tell me never mind, right? Please, don't tell me you're calling to say never mind. I made a freaking house. Of candles.”

“What?” He sounded positively affronted. “Meredith, I wouldn't tell you that over the phone even if I...” He cleared his throat. “I mean, yes. Yes, I broke up with Rose.”

She thought that information would relax her. It didn't. “Well, I'm upset,” Meredith said, emboldened. “I'm very upset, Derek. It's been hours. This isn't promoting trust at all. If you're not out breaking up with Rose anymore, where are you? You said to wait. I waited. And now I have bed hair or whatever, and I'm freezing my ass off.”

“I'm not there because I was in a car accident.”

“What?” she said as she sat up. The room spun, and she blinked in the darkness as she shoved back the covers. “Are you hurt? Where are you calling from? Derek, I--”

“I'm fine,” he assured her. “Meredith, I'm fine. It was just a minor accident.”

“A minor accident,” she parroted.

“Yes,” he said. “But my car is getting towed.”

“Towed? Towed, Derek?” she said. She turned on the lamp beside the bed. Light jabbed her eyeballs, and she flinched away as she blinked. “That's not minor. That's not even remotely minor.” She rolled off the bed, half-blind, and slammed her big toe into the wall by accident. “Crap!” she said, as she hopped in an attempt to outmaneuver the jarring pain.

“Are you okay?” he said.

“Don't you turn this around on me,” she said. “Minor is when your fender is scuffed, or you get a little dent that you have to take to the shop, and they tell you it's a thousand dollars to fix even though it's the size of a quarter, and you look at it, and you can't believe that such a small dent is worth that much money. Minor is not getting towed!”

As she finished her rant, she panted. Her voice echoed back to her through the receiver, a ghost. She shook her phone and glared at the barely-one-bar. Constellations and pretty views be damned. She had almost no freaking reception at all.

He made a noise on the other end. She couldn't really identify it. “Are you laughing?” she snapped. “You were in a car accident, and you're laughing at me.”

“I'm not laughing,” he said, but he was such a damned liar. “You're cute when you're mad.”

“Shut up,” she grumbled. “You're really okay, though, right?”

“I'm completely fine, Meredith,” he said. “I'm going to call a taxi. I just wanted to let you know why I wasn't back yet.”

The clear wail of an ambulance siren pierced her ear through the phone, and her grip tightened. She had the vague suspicion that he'd intentionally left out a few details. Another siren whined, more quiet, in the back of the background. Two ambulances a long distance apart. What kind of minor accident needed two ambulances?

She imagined him sitting on the curb by his smashed car, dazed, confused, and spewing lies because he wasn't in any shape to self-assess. He'd wave at the tow-truck driver and smile, even if he were dying. Somehow, the paramedics had missed it, and he wasn't okay at all. And, of course, he wouldn't tell her if he wasn't fine, because that would be admitting... something. Impugning his man-ness? Or...

Whatever. She shook her head.

“You're not calling a taxi,” she told him. “I'll come get you. You're sure you're okay?”

“Meredith--”

“Don't Meredith me,” she said as she hunted for her shoes. Her knuckles hurt. It was too freaking cold. “Where are you?”

“Uh,” he said. A long pause followed. “Halladay and 4th.”

Shoes found. She yanked on the laces of her left shoe to loosen the tongue, and she jammed her foot into the shoe. She grunted. “That's practically where I live.”

“It's, uh.” He cleared his throat. She finished her right shoe. “Rose lives sort of near you.”

“Oh, my god,” Meredith said. She paused in the middle of tying her laces. The cord dug into her palms and scraped. “Did Rose run you over or something?”

“What?” he said. “No. No, it's--”

“Never mind,” she said as she finished tying her shoes. She glanced around wildly for anything she'd forgotten. She spotted his knife on the floor, and she picked that up. She picked up his tissue box. “Never...” She grabbed the champagne bottle, too, but on a whim, she decided to take it with her. “I'm coming to get you.”

“You said that.”

“I know I said that,” she said. She stumbled to the front of the little trailer. The champagne sloshed.

“I can call a taxi, Meredith,” he said. “It's no trouble.”

“No,” she said. “Don't move. Wait for me.”

He laughed. “My turn, now, huh?”

“Yes,” she said. She closed the door of the trailer behind her, and the frigid night air blasted her. This late at night, with, oddly, no cloud cover, all vestiges of warmth had fled the Earth. She stomped her feet in the dirt, trying to force circulation. “I have to hang up,” she said as she trudged toward her Jeep, champagne bottle in hand. “I'm about to get into the car.”

“Okay,” he said.

She bit her lip. “I'll be there in a bit,” she said, and then she hung up.

She blinked the remaining sleep from her eyes and cracked a replenishing yawn. She put the champagne in the back seat where she'd left her purse hours before. Her car smelled like vanilla and candle wax, and as she rolled her Jeep down the long dirt road, the spare boxes of unused candles jounced and jostled and thunked behind her.

She'd cleaned out Wal-Mart's entire supply. Two Wal-Marts. She'd even had them go into the back and get the stocks of candles that they hadn't shelved yet. The cashier's eyes had widened as candle after candle came down the conveyor belt. The salespeople had looked at her like she was crazy, carrying out box after box after box and stuffing her Jeep's trunk and back seat to the gill slits, but where else was Meredith supposed to buy candles in the middle of the night? Most specialty shops she knew of weren't open after dark.

_I'm planning a house,_ Meredith had said at the second Wal-Mart, and the salesman helping her carry things had smiled and nodded, as though that had explained everything.

Meredith's fingers tightened around the steering wheel. She tried not to consider how high the potential was that Derek was lying about how fine he was. She'd just spent a thousand dollars on candles and candle holders, which, karmicly speaking, was like signing his death sentence. Susan had died. Her mother had died. Everybody died. It was perfectly reasonable to assume that Derek was, at this moment, dying. Shock made people sound fine, sometimes, particularly on cell phones with crappy reception. At a busy accident scene, it was so very easy to overlook somebody who wanted to be overlooked.

The Jeep rumbled as she pressed the accelerator to the floor. Halladay and 4th, he'd said. That really was right near her house. Queen Anne Hill. On the other side. She lost track of the road as autopilot carried her home. She tried not to worry and failed.

Her stomach tightened with nerves as she pulled off the 99 and was dumped into the residential area of Queen Anne Hill with a turn of her wheel. Halladay and 4th Avenue was right off of Queen Anne Drive, and she-- The worry became panic when she saw a nuclear cluster of flashing lights in the distance. The red and blue strobe of the police lights turned the leafy greens of the neighborhood haunting, muted shades of deep maroon and ocean-water blue. The black sky above flashed in a reflection of the chaos below.

Cones had been set up along the road, blocking the right and left turns onto Halladay. Broken bits of metal and glass spread out through the intersection all over the road, reflecting like the sea of stars she'd seen hours before on Derek's cliff. A crowd of murmuring onlookers had gathered at the corners of the street. The accident itself had been cleared out of the intersection, though, and Meredith couldn't get a good look at what was going on because her view was blocked by hulking firetrucks on one side, and a tow truck on the other.

She had no option to get onto Halladay, only to continue on 4th Avenue, and so she passed the intersection and pulled against the curb as soon as she located an empty spot in the dark, almost three blocks further down. She whipped off her seat belt, tumbled out of the car, and ran along the narrow sidewalk back to Halladay.

The rumble of voices and activity drew closer as she darted through the darkness and color. She pushed through the crowd. “Derek!” she called, but no one answered. “Derek!” The crowd parted for her as they realized she was looking for somebody in particular instead of just gawking.

She saw three smashed cars beyond the clot of people, one of them flipped on its side, on one side of Halladay and 4th. A tow truck worked on getting a fourth vehicle hooked up to the tow, and off in the distance, a fifth car sat vacant on the other side of Halladay, also mid-career change to an accordion. Firemen and police officers and leftover paramedics made the scene a crawling mess. A woman and a man shouted at each other, red-faced, while a police officer wrote notes with a pen and tried to keep them calm.

“Derek?” she yelled into the din. She barely heard herself. Her heart throbbed when she recognized Derek's car in the mess of destroyed metal.

His black sedan was the car next to the one flipped on its side. The tires skewed in weird directions. The front half of the car had crunched into jagged waves of metal, sort of like the illustration of a heart rhythm. The windshield had cracked in an elaborate spiderweb pattern. The trunk of the vehicle had almost replaced the back seat. What made her stomach turn was the driver side door and steering wheel. The airbag had deployed and deflated; it was a billowing gray mess all over the front seat. The door itself was missing, as though the firefighters had pried it off with the jaws of life or something.

“Ma'am,” said a policeman, who reached out with a hand to stop her. In the mess of dark and light, she could only tell he was young and had short hair. “This is an accident scene. You need to stay behind the--”

“I know it's an accident scene,” Meredith said. “I'm looking for my...” She swallowed. What the hell did she call him? They hadn't really discussed much before he'd walked off to end things with Rose. “My boyfriend,” she decided, and despite her worry over him, a small thrill ran through her body. Boyfriend. God, she'd missed calling him that. She gestured to Derek's car. “That's his car.”

“Oh,” said the policeman. “The doctor, right?”

“He's a surgeon,” Meredith said. “About five foot ten. Stupidly perfect hair. Rail thin.”

The policeman's lip twitched at her description, but he nodded in recognition. He gestured behind himself into the fray. “He's back there somewhere.”

She ran. “Derek!” she yelled as the middle of the mess enveloped her. She had to stop as a fireman brushed past her with a broom, sweeping debris from the road. Her vision blurred as she wheeled about, trying to find Derek in the chaos and the flashing lights. A man in a dark coat sat on the curb twenty feet away, a handkerchief clutched to his forehead. When he looked up and met her eyes, a sob of relief welled up in her chest, and she ran to him.

“Derek,” she said as she dashed to the curb. He stood up and brushed his hands on his dark pants. She barely gave him a chance to gain his balance before she wrapped around him. He grunted with the impact.

“Hey,” he said, his voice a soft rumble against her ear.

The warmth of his body pressed into her despite the chill. The familiar, spicy scent of his hair products and his aftershave and his body made an intoxicating cocktail. She breathed him in. Their coats mashed in a whisper of heavy, winter fabric. Catcalls and hoots and clapping from all the onlookers whirled around them.

The accident scene fell away. She forgot about the flashing lights and the police and all the smashed cars and everything. She kissed him, and she kissed him again without allowing him to breathe or speak, before she pulled away to examine him.

Deep, telltale red splotched the handkerchief he'd been using. A jagged gash clipped his forehead just under his hairline. The wound was about two inches long and had already started to scab. A pinkish hue stained the skin around the cut – probably smudged blood from the handkerchief. She didn't see any blood anywhere else, but who knew what his dark coat hid?

“You told me you were fine!” she said.

A smile breached his face. “Hmm,” he said. He leaned in and kissed her again. “That was a nice hello. Please, continue those in the future.”

She glared. “You're bleeding from your head,” she said. “That's not fine.”

“Bled,” he said. He nuzzled her hair.

“Huh?”

He shrugged. “Bled,” he said. “I'm not bleeding, now.”

“If I pushed on that gash, I could probably see your thick skull,” she said.

“It's just a bump, Meredith. I'm fine. The paramedics gave me some disinfectant.”

“A bump,” she said. “Just a bump?” She grabbed his arms and shoved him hard as upset overwhelmed her. “You're a neurosurgeon, and you're telling me it's just a bump!”

He smirked. Smirked! And he looked at her small hands clutching the arms of his coat as though he were stuck somewhere in bliss. “I would think being a neurosurgeon would make me exceptionally qualified to determine that it's just a bump,” he said. He hid away the bloody handkerchief in his coat pocket.

“Not if you're freaking concussed,” she protested, and she extracted herself from him. She held up her hand a few feet from his face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

He sighed. “Three.”

“Follow my hand,” she said. She moved her hand slowly left and right, up and down. He followed every movement with no hesitation.

She leaned into him. The flashing lights and darkness made it difficult to see, but she could just make out his pupils against the ice blue of his irises. She stood on her tiptoes, and she touched his face as she leaned close. Closer. He stood still, a small smile curling his lips as she stared into his eyes. His pupils were both dilated in the poor light, but evenly, and he looked straight at her with no signs of deviation.

“Satisfied?” he said with a low, deep purr that almost got lost in the ruckus around them.

“No,” she snapped. “Walk in a straight line.”

“Meredith...”

“Walk!”

“Fine,” he said. “But I draw the line at standing on one foot and touching my nose.” He moved with the fluid, catlike grace he always did for several paces. Not a single sign of ataxia.

“What did we do today?” she said as he turned on his heels.

“Saved a patient,” he said. He closed the space between them. He leaned against her, and he kissed her again. And again.

“I-- Wait,” she said, and he stopped with a sigh. “You found out about Beth? I was going to tell you I looked at her scans--”

A smile spread across his face. A big smile. His eyes crinkled around the edges, and even in the dim, red-blue, stuttering light, she saw the twinkle in his eyes. “She woke up,” he said, his voice soft.

“She did? I didn't know that.”

He nodded. “She did.”

Shouting erupted as the woman and the man she'd seen giving statements on the way in almost came to blows. Several police officers pulled them apart. Her attention torn momentarily from Derek, she realized that one of the black-and-white cop cars had a man sitting in the back seat. He looked out the window, a hazy, upset gaze on his face, and he didn't move.

“So, what the hell happened?” Meredith said.

“Well, you see, we used a virus to--”

She shoved Derek again. “To your car, Derek. To you.”

The tow truck working on one of the cars had a good hitch. The wheels of the attached car wobbled as the truck rolled backward, beeping shrilly. A policewoman directed traffic. The crowd pulsed like a living, breathing organism as it shifted for a better view of the carnage.

“Can we go?” Derek said. “They're already done with me.”

Meredith bit her lip. Going meant they would be separating from the crowd of people, separating from the paramedics. He seemed fine... But a lot of injuries that happened in car accidents presented in a delayed fashion. She glanced at the defunct airbag in his car. He would probably be hurting in a few hours. Swimming in a bad headache and wanting to lie down to ease the neck pain. Assuming the only thing wrong with him was the small cut on his forehead and whiplash. She stared at the cut. What if he had some sort of subdural bleed? He could doze off and wake up a vegetable with amnesia. Or dead. He could wake up dead. People died around her. He could die.

“I'm fine,” he said once more. “The paramedics checked me. You checked me. I just want to get out of here.” He looked at her with pleading, dark eyes that were impossible to resist.

She took his hand. His warm fingers didn't move at first, as though he was surprised at the gesture, but then his grip solidified. He did **seem** fine. “I'm parked a few blocks down,” she said.

“Okay,” he said.

Together, they wormed through the crowd and squeaked out behind it. The roar and bustle of the accident scene fell into the distance. The chilly air blew in her face with their quick strides. They slowed down once they'd gotten half-a-block away. She inhaled. She hadn't realized how loud it had all been until the relative silence overwhelmed the last bits of noise. She could hear him breathing, soft and steady. A misty cloud of vapor spread from his nose with every exhalation. Tension loosened from her body at the sound of him, living, breathing, fine.

“So, what happened?” she said again.

“I really wanted to get home,” he said.

“And that makes five cars implode?”

He frowned. “I was tailgating.”

“Derek...”

“A drunk driver ran the stop sign and hit the car two cars in front of me,” he said. “The car in front of me braked. I didn't have time to stop. My airbags deployed. Then I got rear-ended because the car behind me was tailgating, too.”

“Was anybody hurt?” she said.

He shrugged. “Bumps and bruises. A broken bone or two. Nothing you'd be interested in.”

“I'm not scoping potential surgeries.”

He smiled. “Sorry,” he said.

“The door on your car is gone,” she said.

“I couldn't get out,” he said. “They had to pull it off.”

“But you're okay.”

“Absolutely fine,” he assured her once more.

She looked at the sidewalk and followed her feet with her gaze. She tried to imagine him sitting calmly in his squished car while the firemen pried off the door. She couldn't do it. She couldn't picture him in that kind of peril, no matter how sedate and, really, not perilous the experience had been.

They walked in silence for several paces. He had a much longer stride than she did, and somehow, she didn't feel rushed or pressured into moving faster. They walked. And it was nice. His hand felt nice. It all felt... nice.

“I got a ticket,” he said.

She looked up. “For being smashed by a drunk driver?”

“Tailgating,” he said. “And failure to pay full time and attention.” He stopped, and nerves regathered as she watched him yawn. His eyes watered as his jaw cracked wide. He blinked tears as the yawn pushed them out of him. His eyelashes glistened in the dim light. He sniffed, and the cheery demeanor he'd been projecting onto her since she'd first laid eyes on him broke a bit around the edges.

“You really should go to the ER,” she said.

“I'm fine.”

“You're drowsy,” she countered.

He sighed. “Meredith, I've been up for over twenty-four hours and did two back-to-back craniotomies. I drove all over creation trying to find you, and then--”

“You were trying to find me?” she said.

His lip curled. “Yes, Meredith. I was trying to find you. I went to your house.”

“I was at your trailer,” she said.

“I seem to recall that,” he said. He pressed closer. He pulled the hand she held to his chest. She rested her palm against his heart and splayed her fingertips. His torso expanded and constricted with his soft, even breaths. The streetlight overhead gave his hair a silvery cast and emphasized the dark circles under his eyes.

“I had a speech ready,” he murmured. He reached up and stroked her hair.

She let her eyelids dip. “A speech?”

“When I went to find you,” he said. “I need you, Meredith. I...”

“Need me?” she said, her voice a dreamy slur as he wrapped his arms around her.

“I don't know why you picked tonight for the candles,” he said, “But I'm glad.” A deep, emotional force shuddered through his body. She felt him against her, breathing, and it seemed as though weeks of stress and angst shed from him like a crackling mess of old fall leaves. “Can we go home, now?” he said.

“My house?” she said. “It's much closer. You could sleep.”

“Wherever you want, Meredith,” he said. “I'm just happy it's with you.”

They walked the last block at a brisk pace. She couldn't stop the twittery feeling in her chest as he settled into the passenger seat beside her and stared through the windshield. She started the car. She turned, and she watched his profile in the darkness. He aimed the air vents so they hit him, though only cold air blew from them while the engine warmed. The loose tufts of his hair over his forehead fluttered in the chilly breeze. He rubbed his hands together. He had long, spindly, dexterous fingers perfect for his line of work. She licked her lips as he folded his hands under his armpits.

“It smells like vanilla in here,” he said. “Are you using a new shampoo?”

“They ran out of unscented candles.”

“Oh,” he said.

“Why?” she said. “Do you like it?”

He inhaled. “Hmm.” A slow, relaxed smile spread across his face. “Yes. But I like the lavender better.”

He was in her Jeep. He hadn't been in her Jeep in... Too long. She'd let everything go too long. She blinked, and the sight of his lean body blurred.

“I missed you,” she said. She sniffed, and she wiped her eyes. Wet drops came away with her fingertips.

He looked at her. “I missed you, too.”

“Don't sell your land,” she told him.

His gaze softened, just as it always seemed to when he looked at her. “I won't.”

She nodded. “Good,” she said. She glanced in the rear view mirror and then the side mirror. No cars. No people. She pulled onto 4th Avenue and drove the Jeep slowly down the dark tunnel of trees and telephone poles and houses, leaving the chaos behind them.

“You're sure no ER?” she said.

“If I start slurring my name or yours, then you can take me to the ER,” he said. “Okay?”

“Fine, but you know what that means, right?”

“What does what mean?”

She pulled the car to a stop at a red light and turned to him. The car cabin glowed vaguely red. She grinned. “I have to supervise you for twenty-four hours.”

“Meredith, it's really just a bump,” he said. “I'm not concussed. I'll be fine.”

“Twenty-four hours,” she said. She leaned across the parking brake. Her seat belt jabbed into her hip and her neck. She didn't care. She drove her body into his space, and she kissed him, long and full. He grunted, and his lips parted. His mouth tasted minty, like toothpaste or something.

When she pulled away, he was breathing hard, and his piercing stare had become a bit glassy. “Hmm,” he said. He wiped his face with his hand, tracing the v of his cheek bones to his stubbly chin. His face had flushed a bit, too. He smiled wide enough to show pearly teeth. “Do I get sex when I'm wounded? Or just kissing?”

“Maybe.”

His eyebrows raised. “Maybe sex, or maybe kissing?”

She grinned. “I'm thinking both.”

“I can get on board with this plan,” he decided. “Is tomorrow your day off?”

“Today is my day off, yes,” she said. “Is it yours?”

“Yes,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “Oh, wow,” he said.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Almost dawn.” Which was probably why nobody had honked at her for sitting through what must have been more than one light cycle. She watched with a sheepish grin as yellow flipped to red. She'd missed the change to green.

“Mmm,” he said. “A day off with you sounds nice.” He leaned back against the seat. The cushion moaned with his movement. “Haven't had one of those in...” His voice lost traction as he thought.

“Months,” she said, finishing for him.

He nodded. “Months.”

“Let's go to the docks,” she said. “Our spot. We can watch the ferryboats and celebrate. I have our champagne in the backseat. We're clearly not getting any sleep anyway.”

A lazy smile spread across his face. “Okay.”

They didn't speak as the light turned green. She glided the Jeep through the empty streets. Seattle seemed like a ghost town that early in the morning. Night owls always roamed the streets in the early morning, but she'd always found a sort of peace as 3AM became 4AM became 5AM. In the march toward breakfast, the bars closed. Nobody walked down the streets. All the cars were tucked away in their driveways and garages for a brief respite.

When she parked along the lapping water under a lone tree, he snuffled, and she realized he'd fallen asleep, if only briefly. She turned off the engine, and the buffeting heat from the air vents ceased. He blinked, and he smacked his lips before he swallowed. He peered through bleary eyes at her.

She hadn't seen that in a long time, either. The way he looked when he first woke up, still half in dreams. Derek Shepherd was a morning person, yes, but only if he'd slept that night. She'd gotten well acquainted with the half-dead, groggy gaze and sluggish movements he made when he'd pulled an all-nighter or close to one. A common thing for him as Seattle Grace's most in-demand neurosurgeon.

“Hi,” she said while he regained his sentience.

He breathed and scrunched his nose as he stared at his watch. His nose crinkled, and he ran a hand through his hair. His coat rustled as he shifted in his seat. “Sorry,” he said.

She shrugged. A boat churned water far off the shore, and its lights glowed against the dark bay and the midnight blue sky. Not a ferryboat, but a boat, nonetheless. They watched together in silence as it faded to a distant pinprick of light. The light went out as the horizon engulfed it.

“How did it go with Rose?” Meredith said. She turned to face him. He had an odd look on his face. Like he wasn't sure what was safe to say.

He settled on, “I think she knew it was coming.”

“So, she's okay?”

He nodded. “I think so. She took it pretty well.”

“And us?” she said. “Are we okay?”

“Well, we're here,” he said, his voice soft.

She nodded. “We are.”

He broke his gaze from the black, choppy water across the bay and looked at her. The bulky tree she'd parked under blocked the nearby streetlight and muted the light in the car cabin. She met his stare. Odd shadows crept across his face as the tree waved its twiggy branches in the wind.

“I seem to recall you still being mad at me,” he said. “And not trusting me.”

She sucked in a breath. “I'm...”

“It's okay,” he said.

She stared at him. He didn't blink. Her body tensed as she waited for the ultimatum. The but. The condition on how long he would wait, this time, for her to straighten herself out, but it never came. He sat across from her, silent, watching her, but he didn't give her any sort of conditions at all. He stared at her as though she were a glass of water for his drought, and she got the distinct impression that, were they to play a game of poker, she would win, simply because she held more cards, which was an odd feeling. She wasn't used to having any sort of upper hand with him.

“So, what does this mean?” she said.

He shrugged. “Does it have to mean anything?”

“What does **that** mean?”

He leaned forward. “What if we just be?” he said. “Just for a little while?”

The begging in his tone was hard to counter, though she wondered why he, of all people, didn't want to tack on some rules at the first opportunity. He'd always been about rules. And expectations. And wanting her to move faster than she could move. That's why she'd gone to therapy in the first place. Because she'd been an emotionally stunted freak who couldn't move.

What had changed with him that made him not demanding? The Derek she knew wanted. Demanded. He loved at a breakneck pace that scared the crap out of her. A whorl of doubt clogged her throat, but she swallowed it away. She was making issues where there weren't any. Yet. She was doing exactly what Dr. Wyatt had told her she did. Waiting for him to mess up so she could bolt. She had to **stop** that.

“I'm...” she began. She took a breath and forced it out. Stop waiting for him to mess up. Stop it. Bad Meredith. “Okay,” she agreed. “Just be.” She could just be. They could.

“Just be,” he echoed.

The intensity of his gaze startled her, made her toes clench, and her skin tingle. Her mouth went dry, and she had to look away to save herself from drowning in it. She pushed against the floor mat with her feet and slid up the length of the seat as she twisted. The champagne was... She reached for it. It lay in the dip where the cushions met. Her fingers stretched. Her body ached. Her fingertips brushed the cool glass. She grabbed and yanked.

“Is that even cold anymore?” he asked as she resettled in the seat and fiddled with the foil.

“Nope,” she said. “Well, it's cold by virtue of it being cold outside.”

“It's not **that** cold outside,” he said. “And you've had the heater on.”

“I know,” she said. She yanked away all the foil and crumpled it into a ball. She tossed the foil at him. He swatted it with a grin. The ball bounced off the dashboard and onto the floor. She pulled on the the cork. The cork moaned against the neck of the bottle as pressure built, and Derek tensed.

“Don't just yank on it,” he said. “You'll get champagne everywhere when the carbon dioxide releases.”

She raised an eyebrow and looked at him. He relaxed, though his gaze didn't leave the neck of the bottle. She snickered and tightened her grip just to watch him squirm a little. “I dropped it earlier, you know,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes. “Meredith...”

“I suppose you're a champagne bottle expert?” she said.

He smiled. “Maybe I am.”

“Since when?”

His gaze lit with amusement. He held out his hand, and she relented. She handed him the bottle. He grasped it. “Watch,” he said in his patient teacher voice that she loved. “And learn.”

He gripped the fat part of the bottle with one hand, and the cork with the other. He placed his thumb on the top of the cork. At first, she didn't think he was doing anything, but the bottle flashed as the light hitting it shifted. His lips pressed into a thin line of concentration as he twisted the bottle, his expression mirror to the one he used when he clipped a difficult aneurysm, or fixed a tricky clot. She jumped as she heard a soft pop. The cork didn't pop off. He kept twisting, very gently, until he had the cork in one hand and the bottle in the other. The lip of the bottle misted with escaping vapors, but no champagne bubbled over.

“Impressive,” she said.

“Mmm,” he agreed. “It's an acquired skill.”

“And how did you acquire it?” she said.

“Schmoozing in Manhattan.”

She grinned. “I just can't picture you schmoozing with anybody. You're too...” She waved her hand, trying to think of the right word. “Rustic or whatever.” She leaned against the seat and watched him through lowered eyelashes. “You're just... You.”

He snorted. “I've changed a bit,” he said. He tilted the bottle at her. “Cheers?”

She took the bottle from his hand. “To a successful trial,” she said.

“A successful trial,” he echoed with a nod.

“And just being,” she added. She tipped the bottle at him in a salute. He smiled, though muted.

The cold glass touched her lips. The scent of alcohol tickled her nose. She tilted the bottle. A swig of bitter, warm, bubbly fluid hit her mouth, and she gagged. She spit champagne everywhere in a wide spray. He twitched as some of the mess hit his face, but his eyes sparkled, and a light flutter of laughter fell from his lips.

“This tastes like **crap** when it's warm,” she said.

He took the bottle from her and mirrored her swig, though more cautiously. “Oh,” he said, swallowing. “It really does.” He grimaced as the aftertaste stuck in his mouth. He glanced at the shiny label. “Not my best pick.”

“You mean you've had worse?” she said.

“Um,” he began. He looked at her and shrugged. “Not really, no.”

She grinned. “Next clinical trial, I'm picking the booze.”

“I guess you're the expert on that,” he said.

She nodded. “If there's one thing I'm very good at, it's liquor.”

He tilted his head as he looked at her. A small, humoring smile curled his lips, and he sighed. “Meredith,” he said, his voice soft. “You're good at a lot more than that.” He reached across the space between them, and he cupped her face. His warm touch burned against her.

“Not relationships,” she said.

He stroked her skin, but he didn't say anything. A weird look crossed his face. Again, like he didn't know what was safe to say, and couldn't think of something dreamy to cover it up. But he didn't condemn her, either.

“Derek,” she said. She leaned into his hand. She kissed his palm, and then his wrist. “Derek,” she whispered against the weave of his wool coat. She had words. She had so many words. But none of them would grace her lips except his name. “Derek,” she said. His name had become a chant from one iteration to the next.

She gripped his hand. His fingers flexed. She kissed every knuckle. He shifted, and what had been space between them became nothing but his body and hers with no air between. He sighed against her body. The awkwardness slipped away. The champagne bottle dropped to the floor of the Jeep. A glug, glug, glug sound hit the air as the bottle emptied into the floor mat.

“Oops,” he said against her lips.

They kissed.

“Whatever,” she replied as she tasted him.

His warm breaths hit her face. He roamed away. He nudged her throat, and she leaned back. He kissed her at her pulse and traced her jugular with his tongue.

“Mmm,” he said, but she knew him well enough to know the words he didn't say.

I want you. I need you. I love you. Mine. All in a single rumbling sound unique to him.

She'd missed him. She'd really missed him. And now he was in her Jeep after weeks and weeks. Months. She never wanted him to let go. Ever again. She wanted forever.

livetoahundredandten

When she died, she wanted it to be in his arms.

dieinyourarms

She wanted what he wanted, and she knew it. She knew it as fact, and the revelation burst inside her like a supernova. She was still afraid, but as he kissed her breath away, the rest of it didn't seem to matter anymore. The fear seemed like a small thing. Easily cowed.

They meshed, a war of push and pull. She gasped as his hands slid underneath her red shirt. He shrugged his coat away, and she grappled with his sweater. They kissed, and they touched, and they sighed, and they moaned.

“Ouch,” he said as the parking brake stabbed his abdomen.

She grunted, and in a shuffle of limbs, she crawled out of her seat. Her hip bumped the steering wheel. Her coat caught on the brake as she climbed across that and the storage compartment into his arms. She gasped, leaning to the side as the the coat tried to keep her in the driver's seat. He freed her coat from the brake, and then he gripped the hemline of her shirt. He rolled it over her shoulders, her head, back. Her coat and her shirt fell away together.

Chill hit her skin. His lips parted as she settled on top of him. He buried his face against the lace of her bra, and she shivered as he licked her and then mopped his trail with soft kisses. The loose, thin straps of her bra fell from her shoulders. She thrusted against his body, and he moaned. Derek moaned when he was aroused. Another delightful sound she'd never thought she'd hear again.

“I remember this,” she said.

He gave her a lazy smirk that showed teeth. “I took you for a ride.”

She tasted him. “Car sex?” she said against his skin.

“Car sex,” he agreed.

He shifted underneath her. She kissed his lips and his nose and his neck and his shoulder. Anything she could reach in the small space. She thumped against the window and the seat and the dashboard as she tried to move. The upholstery squeaked. Too little space. She pressed against his body. Why was that a problem? No problem. None. Silly Meredith.

She laughed as their bodies ratcheted backward in leaps. The bay beyond the window disappeared. The space beyond the windows became nothing but sky and the twisty tree, and Derek became her horizon. She glanced and saw he had his hand on the seat release lever. “More space,” he said, as though he'd read her mind.

“More space,” she agreed, and she flattened against him.

He bucked underneath her. She fiddled with his belt buckle and popped it loose with her thumb. His zipper screamed in the space between them. She splayed her palms against the flat of his stomach and roamed down and further down, past the twist of hair under his navel. The elastic waistband of his boxer briefs resisted briefly, but she pushed underneath, and she kept going down. Down the long line of fuzz that pointed like an arrow to his--

“Oh,” he moaned as she found him. He rubbed against her palm. The seat squeaked.

She panted as she encircled his length with her thumb and index finger and stroked, base to tip. He filled her hand, hard and ready. “That excited already?”

“Mmm,” he said. “Please, tell me you have condoms in here somewhere.”

She curled over him and kissed his ear. Her hair fell like a drape around her head. “Glove compartment,” she whispered.

His breath skipped in his chest as she cupped him. His gaze spaced. “Always prepared,” he said. His thumb roamed to the button at her waist. He popped it. His hand slid underneath--

A loud rap-tap-tap against the window startled her. She slammed back against the glove compartment, and he groaned. Pain radiated along her spine from the impact. “Crap,” she said. The window had fogged, but she could see the looming silhouette of a person beside the Jeep. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing sexual frustration away.

“Seattle PD,” said the silhouette in a deep, authoritative voice as he knocked on the window again. “Roll down the window, please.”

“Crap,” Derek echoed.

He shifted underneath her and tried to zip up his pants. The zipper had spread apart wide as they'd dueled their kissing duel. In the small space, with her jammed on top of him, he couldn't get enough leverage to pull the zipper closed. Her shirt was too complicated and tangled. She fumbled for her coat and threw it on over her bra. He buttoned her pants. She rolled down the window.

Cold air struck her face as the window slid into its space inside the door. She blinked. The sky outside had brightened into pinks and other pastels. The bay had turned a more colorful blue instead of black. An early morning ferryboat lowed to the bay with its horn as it drifted past. Tiny moving specks, people, dotted the rails.

She brushed flyaway hair out of her face. The cop standing outside their window looked familiar for some reason, but she couldn't place it. The man wasn't tall, but wasn't short either. He stood at perhaps Derek's height. He had a dark, olive tone to his skin, and wisps of his curly black hair peaked out from underneath his hat. He had a shiny badge on his chest. A nightstick, a walkie-talkie, a gun, a long knife, and other tools lined his belt. She glanced at Derek. He had his eyes shut, and he rested against the seat, a deep, red hue creeping across his face. He didn't speak, didn't even clear his throat or try to say something suave.

“Um,” Meredith said. She hunched her shoulders. “Hi, Officer.”

The policeman peered at her. “Do you realize you're in a public area?”

The ridiculous question blindsided her, particularly given the man's serious tone and his serious gaze.

She glanced around. The water lapped below them. The tree swayed. Open space, water and land, surrounded the Jeep. Another car had parked several spaces away. How could one possibly not know this was a public area? She fought the urge to snort.

Stop it, she told herself.

Her back hurt. Her knees ached from crouching over Derek, but she didn't have anywhere to move, and Derek wasn't exactly put together. His pants were still open, and his boxer briefs bulged. She was his only shield. She swallowed.

“We're very sorry,” she said, though her voice quivered with helpless amusement. Derek tensed underneath her, and she bit her lip as his hand squeezed her thigh. Hard. Damn him for knowing her so well.

The policeman narrowed dark, chocolate-colored eyes at her. He folded his arms over his broad chest. “I'd like to see your license and registration, please,” he said.

“Seriously?” she said.

“Meredith, don't goad him,” Derek hissed, low and quiet under the relaxing slosh of the bay.

She sighed. “Just a sec,” she said. She saw her purse lying in the back seat. With a grunt, she pressed against Derek's body and reached. With his torso in the way, she couldn't quite extend enough. She grabbed at his shirt for leverage, jammed her knees into the seat, and shimmied against him. He sucked in a breath.

“Meredith,” Derek whispered, pleaded, begged. “This isn't helping me.” His head hit the headrest.

“I'm sorry,” she said. She finally got a grip on the purse strap. She yanked. She put her purse on his lap because she had no space elsewhere to put it. At least he was covered, somewhat. Derek went back to his blushing, silent repose while she dug through the deepest bowels of her purse. She fished for her wallet. “Here's my license,” she said as she pulled it from the clear plastic sleeve and handed it through the open window to the waiting officer. She dug her registration out of the purse's side pocket, and she handed that over, too.

“Thank you, ma'am,” the police officer said. He leaned against the window. “Sir, I'd like--” He blinked as he got a good look at Derek, and Meredith frowned. Derek looked positively distraught. Was he really that embarrassed? He was aroused. That much was clear. But it wasn't like his briefs were down, or--

“Dr. Shepherd,” said the officer, and Meredith frowned harder.

Derek's eyes opened. “Hello, sir,” he said.

The officer smirked. “Well, you seem to get around, don't you?”

“What does **that** mean?” Meredith said, but the officer ignored her.

He leaned even closer. “Do I smell alcohol?”

“We spilled some champagne by accident,” Derek said.

“We only had a sip each,” Meredith added. “We're not drunk.”

“Uh huh,” the officer said. He stepped back from the Jeep. “Would you two step out of the car, please?”

“What?” Meredith said. “Couldn't we maybe just get a warning? We promise to leave.”

“Step out of the car, please,” the officer said.

“But we're obviously not drunk, and--”

She gasped when Derek jabbed her stomach with his hand. “Meredith,” Derek said. He stared at her, his gaze intent, his eyebrows raised, as though he were trying to convey some sort of urgent message to her. A message she didn't understand.

“What...”

“This is Officer Glasscock,” Derek said.

She couldn't stop the snort of laughter that burbled from her lips. Of all the unfortunate names, that was--

“He wrote my ticket earlier,” Derek said.

“Oh,” she said. She swallowed. She peered out the window at the dark-haired policeman. He didn't look amused. Not an iota. Not even an eensie-teensie smidgen.

“Step out of the car, please,” the large man repeated. “I won't ask again.”

Meredith frowned. Derek glowered. “Oh, crap,” she said, and this time, she meant it.


	2. Chapter 2

The lockup consisted of two medium-sized rooms arrayed with six benches each. Three benches lined the center of each room. One bench lined each non-barred side of each cell. A wide hallway divided the two lockups. Vague sunlight streamed through the barred windows on Derek's side. A fat drunk humming “Henry the 8th” rested on his side by the window behind Derek. The click, click, click behind Meredith's back told her the hooker she'd been sequestered with paced. The hooker's stilettos hit the hard floor as she walked.

Meredith sighed as she shifted on the bench. She sat on the edge closest to the bars, closest to Derek, who was stuck in the opposite cell. They'd been separated. She didn't want to be separated. She wanted to be over there. Actually, she didn't want to be in a cell, period, but that was a different argument.

Her back hurt. She shifted. Her clothes felt yucky, and she wanted a shower. At least Officer Glasscock had allowed them to get fully dressed before arresting them. That had been a nice concession. She bit her lip, recalling Derek's red-faced glower as he'd stepped out of the car and finally had a chance to zip up his pants. He'd been quiet and broody since the click of the handcuffs sliding into place had hit his ears, and he'd said all of three words during in-processing when they'd been fingerprinted.

“This isn't really what I pictured when I said twenty-four hours of supervision,” Meredith said.

Derek sighed. “Me either.”

He paced back and forth along the line of bars. He wiped his face with his hands and yawned when he reached the opposite corner of the cell. Then he turned and lumbered back in her direction. Back and forth. Back and forth. Just like the way the upset jaguar at the zoo always paced. His gait **did** almost have a leonine quality to it. Dark bags circled underneath his eyes. Every once in a while, he'd pinch his shoulders and perform a brief self-massage of his trapezius muscles, like he was tense, or... like whiplash was setting in, and he realized he was hurting, or...

“Are you okay?” she said.

He didn't stop. “I'm fine,” he said.

She watched him switch back. Back and forth. Back and forth. She wondered how many calories he was burning. A lot, for sure. Had he never been arrested before? She rubbed her arm. Derek followed the rules. He'd probably been on the honor roll in school, gotten awards for perfect attendance, made the valedictorian speech for senior graduation, and done all the crap associated with being a nerd.

“This isn't a big deal, you know,” Meredith said. “They'll let us out soon. Probably later in the morning when the judge is free to arraign us or whatever. I bet we'll be out by lunch.” And, with luck, having some great sex. But she didn't say that part.

Derek stopped, turned, and grabbed the bars. He stared at her, a tense smile tugging at his lips. “And you would know this, how?”

Meredith remembered back in high school when she'd toilet papered a house with some slightly tipsy friends. They'd driven around town in a big van, nabbing signs and parking cones and other lawn decorations from all over the city. Somehow, Shannon McGillicuty, the class valedictorian, had gotten dragged along. _Are you sure this is the best idea?_ Shannon had moaned as they'd driven the van up to the principle's house. That would be Derek, Meredith decided. Shannon. Barfing over breaking the law.

“I've...” Meredith said. “I may have done things. At one point in time.”

“Hmm.” His hint of a smile never turned into a full one. He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes dark, unblinking, and she couldn't pinpoint what his expression meant. The last quiver of mirth on his lips wavered and died. The pacing resumed.

She sighed. “Seriously, Derek, sit down,” she said. “You're making me nervous.”

“You and me both,” muttered the hooker.

Meredith turned and looked at the woman. She was a tall, lanky creature with an anorexic look to her. She had red, stringy hair. Dark, ruined mascara blotched her eyes. She wore a halter top that didn't really cover her black, lacy bra underneath, a short vinyl miniskirt, and long stiletto boots that stopped above her knees.

“You're pacing, too,” Meredith said.

The hooker shrugged. “Strutting,” she said. “It's a job skill.” Her heels plink, plink, plinked against the concrete floor as she continued pacing. Her skirt squeaked as she swayed her hips.

Meredith rolled her eyes and turned back to Derek. He flopped onto the bench across from her and sighed. “Sorry,” he said. He leaned over his knees, and pinched the bridge of his nose like he was suffering.

“How's your head?” she said.

He looked up. His dark eyes flashed with impatience. “It's just a bump, Meredith,” he said, irritation creeping into his voice.

“Sorry,” she said. “I... Sorry.”

He'd been nice about it since she'd found him sitting on the curb with a bloody handkerchief. Almost perfect, really. Calm. Accommodating. This was the first time he'd seemed like he didn't appreciate being asked. She frowned. People with brain injuries sometimes acted nasty. Overly anxious. Or...

The drunk lying on the bench behind Derek rolled, and a loud, slurred verse of his toneless song coiled in the air. Derek cringed, and he resumed stroking the sides of his nose as though he thought his head would burst. He inhaled. He pressed the flat of his palms against his knees. He stood. He continued his monotonous pacing. She'd never seen him like this.

“Seriously,” she said. “Derek, what's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong,” he said.

“Something's wrong.”

He stopped in front of her. “Nothing's **wrong** , Meredith,” he snapped.

The hooker snorted. “He's probably on PCP or something.”

“You're like a tripwire,” Meredith insisted, ignoring the hooker. “Are you really sure it's just a bump?”

Derek took a deep breath. “I'm really sure it's just a bump, Meredith,” he said, his tone tight with stress and not relaxed and smirk-y like it should be.

He gripped the bars, and his fingers clenched. She watched the color drain from his knuckles, and she wished she were closer than ten feet away. If she were closer, she could touch him, maybe determine if he was hiding symptoms like tremors. And she could wrap her arms around him. And then maybe the time wouldn't crawl like a freaking snail because at least she'd have her arms wrapped around him, which would make this place seem a little less awful.

Her jail cell smelled like urine and bleach. The benches had no backs. She felt icky and gross and un-showered. And she was stuck with a strutting hooker. Years ago, she wouldn't have cared. The experience would have been a badge of honor. An ordeal for the sake of posterity, so that she could regale anyone unfortunate enough to be her child in the future with war stories from her youth.

Except this wasn't years ago. This was today. She'd missed Derek for weeks. She should be having lusty, groan-y makeup sex with him right this moment. She should be touching his body, sliding her palms up his naked skin. She should be toiling with the wisps of hair dusting his pectorals. She should be listening to his moans, and his gasps, and watching his eyes sparkle in the dark. She should be experiencing all the things that she knew were perfect about him. The imperfect bits like his nasty temper weren't supposed to show up the day after they'd made up.

God, she wanted to touch him. She stood, and she approached the bars. She mirrored his hands-on-bars position and stared.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay, I just...” She picked at a paint chip on the bar. The fleck of beige crumbled in her hands. She scraped the indent left behind with her nail. Why was he doing this when he was clearly not okay? “Any whiplash?”

He sighed. “Meredith...”

Her heart sank at his glower. “It's starting again, isn't it?” she said.

“What's starting again?”

“The part where we just don't work.”

“No. No. No,” he said, his said his voice increasing in volume with each iteration of the word. The bars rattled. He pressed his face into the gap between the bars, as if he wanted to get closer to her, too, and the desperate look in his eyes slayed her. She tightened her grip. He shook his head. “We work,” he said. “We... I just...”

“Then tell me what's wrong,” she said. “Maybe this isn't your head, or whiplash, but I'm stuck over here, and you're stuck over there, and all I have is what I can see. And what I see is **clearly** wrong.”

The hooker approached the bars. She frowned, and she tossed back unhealthy locks of split-end-y red hair. She blinked. She peered at Derek with bloodshot green eyes, and she nodded after a moment of assessment. “I gotta say, honey. I'm gonna have to side with the waif on this one.”

“I'm not a waif!” Meredith said.

“She's not a waif,” Derek agreed.

“Sweetheart,” said the hooker as she eyed Meredith up and down, “You weigh less than me.”

“Look,” said Meredith. “What do I call you?”

The hooker shifted, and she brought an index finger to her lips as she attempted a sultry pout. “Anything you want.”

“What's your **name?** ” Meredith said.

The woman shrugged. “Ashley.”

“Well, Ashley,” said Meredith, and she pointed to the far bench, “Could you maybe go sit over there?”

Ashley rolled her eyes. “Just trying to help you out.” She swayed on her hips, and she plink, plink, plinked over to the corner where Meredith had pointed.

The distant rumble and bustle of the police precinct beyond the hallway door impinged. The drunk in Derek's cell had at least stopped singing and started mouth-breathing, the maybe-precursor to snoring. Ashley sat at the far end of Meredith's cell, picking at a scuff on the heel of her boot. Meredith didn't understand why they'd let the woman into a cell with those things. The heels could kill somebody. Meredith shook her head, and she turned back to Derek, who leaned against the bars and watched her with a brooding look.

“Well?” Meredith said. “What's wrong?”

He swallowed. “I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“What other shoe?”

“I crashed my car,” he said. “We got arrested.”

“How is that a shoe?”

He blinked and looked away. He wiped at his face again, and she saw a distinct sheen of water forming over his eyes. Like he was choked up, or... God, was he crying? Not yet. But... Panic burbled in her chest. Moodiness like that was definitely a sign of head injury. Nonsensical thoughts like that were a sign of head injury, too.

“Derek,” she said. She clenched the bars. “I'm serious. If you feel weird, you need to tell somebody.”

She flinched when he jammed the flat of his palm against the bars. They rattled. “Damn it, Meredith,” he barked, and he pulled tense fingers through his hair.

“Simmer down in there!” called the guard from around the corner.

The chastising only seemed to incense Derek more. He launched from the bars and paced again. “I don't. Have. A concussion,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Then tell me what you do have,” Meredith said.

“We've only been back together for a few hours,” he said on one pass. He turned. He paced back the way he'd come. “And I crashed my car, and we got arrested.” Back and forth.

“Yeah,” said Meredith. “And?”

He stopped, and he looked at her. “I figured you'd bolt again,” he said. “I mean you can't, now, because we're locked in here, but...”

She swallowed. Something sharp pricked the backs of her eyes. “What?”

“I'm sorry,” he blurted.

“Sorry... for...”

“Please,” he said. “I know you don't trust me, and I know you don't love me as much as I love you. Just don't go anywhere. I can't do this again. When I said you're the love of my life, I meant it, and I can't...” She stood there, her mouth hanging open, stunned. He took a twisted, shaky breath and blew it out. “I'll do whatever you want, as slowly as you want to go, for as long as you want to do that,” he said. “You win. I'm sorry for before. Just...” He wiped at his eyes. They were watery but not spilling. “Give me a chance. Please, Meredith.”

“I... I...” she stuttered.

Whatever she'd been expecting, it hadn't been that. He'd said he loved her before, even in the middle of telling her to put him out of his misery, but she'd never heard him say it with such painful resignation. Like he knew his situation was hopeless, and he was clawing for anything. Anything to hold onto to keep from drowning. She bit her lip. She didn't have any idea how to respond to the panicked desperation in his words, his eyes, his soul.

When she didn't speak, he nodded, and the look on his face crumpled. He panted, his breaths screwing tight in his chest. He pushed his back against the wall. His body thudded against the brick. He wedged himself between the bench on the wall and the bars, and he slid to the floor. She watched his profile collapse, and her heart squeezed in her chest.

“Derek, I...”

“It's fine,” he said, his voice rough. He swallowed. And he sniffed. “Don't worry about it.”

“Don't worry about it?” she said. “But you just said--”

“I know what I said,” he snapped. He dared a glance at her, and then he looked away. “I shouldn't have.”

“Oh, he's got it **bad** for you, sweetheart,” said Ashley.

Derek's face reddened.

“You stay over there,” Meredith said. “And be quiet.”

The hooker held up her hands in surrender, and resumed fiddling with her boots.

Meredith collapsed to her knees by the bars. The chill of the floor seeped through her pants into her skin. He was so close, and yet so far. Ten feet. It might as well have been a mile. She couldn't touch him. Derek was a tactile person. The distance enforced on them during this conversation would not be good. God, she wanted to be over there. She wanted to be over there right now. She'd never seen...

“Derek, you...” She took a breath. “Why would you think I would run away because we were arrested?” she said. But she knew the answer.

A wry laugh fell from his lips. “It's what you do, Meredith.”

She couldn't deny his assertion. She couldn't do anything. She looked at the floor as all of Dr. Wyatt's words whirled in her head. _People run away from this line between life and death,_ Dr. Wyatt had said. _You seem to stand on it and wait for a strong wind to sway you one way or the other._ The realization that Meredith did the same thing with Derek slipped a knife in her gut.

“When things get difficult, you bolt,” he said.

When Meredith had first met Derek, he'd been flirty, and arrogant, and sure of his attractiveness. _You took advantage of me, and now you want to forget about it?_ He'd told her what he wanted. He'd gotten in her face again and again and again about it until she'd relented and gone on a date. _Wanna take advantage again? Say, Friday night?_ The contrast between the Derek of then and the Derek of now made her throat thicken with a lump the size of Cleveland. Her fault. She'd run away again and again, and she'd made him gun-shy. Insecure. He said please and sorry and he begged. He'd looked at her house of candles, and he'd taken the leap without yelling at her about trust like she had with him.

Her realization of her own hypocrisy made her gut roil. She shook her head. Reflexive anger simmered. She wasn't the only bad guy, damn it. He wasn't blameless. He'd... He'd... “What else am I supposed to do when you toss out threats and ultimatums like popcorn?”

“What are you talking about?” he said. “I don't make threats.”

“I love you, but I can't breathe for you?” she said. He looked away. “I met a woman last night? Put me out of my misery? What if I meet someone else? Love me and the house I'm building, or else?”

“Meredith, I...”

She glared. “Ass. It's not all my fault.” She turned to her side, shoved into the wall in a mirror position to his, and crossed her arms over her chest. Except it felt wrong. It felt wrong to be yelling at him. This time. Addison had been all him. All freaking him. But this time... A breath shuddered in her chest. She swept her hands against her eyes and sniffed.

_But Derek wasn't ready to give up on the relationship, and you were,_ Dr. Wyatt had said.

Derek didn't respond. He stared into space. The exterior door of the lockup buzzed, and a uniformed policeman came through. The officer's keys jingled. Meredith looked at at the guard with hope. Would they be arraigned, now? Would they finally be able to go home?

The blonde officer didn't look at her or Ashley. He walked to the door of Derek's cell and unlocked it. “Larry, your wife is here,” said the officer.

The drunk on the bench rolled to a sitting position. His hair frizzed in all directions. A ruddy tone made the skin of his cheeks and his bulbous nose seem like busted tomatoes. “Oh, good,” he said, his voice thick and slurred. “I thought I'd be stuck in here with Sid and Nancy all day.”

“What?” Meredith said. “We are so not Sid and Nancy.”

“I don't know,” said Ashley. “You have the whole self-destructive, star-crossed thing going on.”

“We do not!” Meredith hissed.

Larry smirked as the policeman led him away. “Yeah, good luck with that,” Larry said. The policeman locked all the doors behind them, leaving the two jail cells in silence once more.

Meredith looked at Derek. “We are not Sid and Nancy.” She looked at Ashley. “We are **not**!”

Ashley snickered. “You tell yourself that, sweetheart,” said Ashley. “But you're both in jail. You clearly have issues. What are you two in for? Drugs? That'd be pretty Sid and Nancy.”

“Public lewdness!” Meredith said.

“Yeah,” Ashley said. “That's much better.”

“Every relationship has issues!” Meredith said. “At least we were arrested for having sex. There's worse things to be arrested for.”

Ashley nodded. “I agree. They keep arresting me for having sex, too.”

Meredith jabbed her thumb at Derek. “He didn't pay me.”

Ashley grinned as she looked at Derek. She licked her lips and grinned like she was staring at a juicy rack of lamb. Her expression looked ghastly on her pale, haggard face. “Sweetheart, I wouldn't charge him, either.”

“Are you calling me a whore?” Meredith said.

“Well, you eat like one,” said Ashley.

“Stop it,” Derek said.

Ashley pouted. “Prince Charming to the rescue, I suppose.”

Derek pressed against the bars. “Why don't you mind your own business?” he said, his gaze dark and glinting. “She never did anything to you.”

“Ooh,” said Ashley. “The pretty ones always have tempers.”

“Give him a break,” Meredith said. “He hasn't slept, and he hit his head.”

Ashley looked back and forth between them. A small smile curled over her lips. “Fine,” she said. She folded her arms over her chest, crossed her long, spindly legs, and looked away.

Meredith resettled and sighed. She blinked, and she breathed, and she tried to force the anger out of herself. Fury burbled underneath her skin as though her body had been placed on a cauldron to boil. As she breathed out, she pressed her diaphragm and chest as far as they would go. The room fuzzed a bit. She let herself inhale. She repeated the process for a long time. She and Derek were not Sid and Nancy. Not even close. They couldn't be. Could they?

Except they were fighting in jail instead of having some really great makeup sex, and...

“You never talk to me,” Derek said.

Her lips parted. “I talk to you all the time,“ Meredith said.

“But not about--”

“Oh, I'd love to hear this,” Meredith said. She glared.

He looked like she'd slapped him. His mouth opened and closed. She wasn't being fair. She knew it. She'd asked him what was wrong. She'd poked and prodded. He took a deep breath. “When I'm with you, I feel like I'm alone,” he said.

“I'm there,” she protested. “I've been there.”

From the look on his face, he didn't agree. He swallowed. “You wanted to know what was wrong,” he said. Like he hated her for pulling him into this. Hated.

“Well, I'm sorry I'm not your perfect Stepford wife who wants your perfect house and 2.4 of your perfect chatty babies or whatever,” she said. What was she doing? Oh, god, what was she doing? Her hands shook. Stop it. Stop messing--

“But I don't want a perfect Stepford wife,” he said. He stared at her with an endless, pleading gaze. “I want you.”

“Except when I don't do what you want,” she countered.

He huffed a frustrated sigh. “You're twisting everything all around.”

“I'm telling you what I'm hearing,” she said.

“Then you're not listening to what I'm saying,” he snapped.

“I'm listening!” she yelled, and she stood. She gripped the bars. “I listen!”

“Yeah,” said Ashley. “You're doing a bang up job of that, now.”

Derek whipped to his feet. Both him and Meredith turned and said, “Shut up!” in unison.

Ashley rolled her eyes. “Well, at least you're in sync, now.”

“I **said** simmer down!” said the guard around the corner.

Meredith sighed as she turned away from the woman. They needed to get out of here. They needed to go home, and talk, and really, really... She turned back to Derek. Dark, twisting emotions pillaged what was left of the calm in his expression. He looked distraught. Like he would burst. He wasn't crying. Hadn't cried. But his eyes had a glistening sheen to them, and red rimmed his eyelids, like he was ready to fall apart, and barely anything held him together.

“Derek,” Meredith said.

“You asked me what was wrong,” he said, accused. He walked away from the bars and sat in the far corner by the back, facing away. He didn't say another word.

Great.

Meredith bit her lip. Little bells of panic went off. She felt like she'd ruined something. Wrecked... Something. And she didn't know what. “Derek, I don't...” But she lost the words. She didn't have any idea what to say anymore.

She pressed her face against the bars and sniffed. The room blurred. This wasn't how anything was supposed to go. This was all wrong.

You stand back, waiting for him to fail, so you can say, “Ah hah! Now, I quit.”

Ashley stood. Her skirt squeaked. She strode to the bars and wrapped thin, arcing fingers around them. “Guard?” she called. “Guard!” After a long, silent minute, Ashley rattled the bars. “Guard!” she belted.

For an eternity, Meredith assumed that Ashley had been ignored, but was proven wrong when the external door buzzed. The blonde police officer strode in with a sigh, keys jingling. Meredith watched him pass. His little gold nameplate said Marx. Officer Marx.

He came to a stop in front of Ashley, several feet back from the bars. He turned to face her. “What is it, now?” he said.

Ashley pointed to Meredith. “I can't stand this woman. Put her somewhere else.”

“What?” said Meredith. Cold panic froze her innards. Did they have another lockup somewhere? “No. No, I need to be here!” If they took her away before she could figure out what to do about Derek...

Officer Marx frowned. “This isn't social hour. Deal with it.”

Ashley batted her eyes, and she sniffed. “Look, I...” She blinked, and a tear pulsed down her cheek. She flicked away a long strand of loose hair. Her boots clicked as she shifted closer to the bars. “I just lost my mother. I want to be alone, but she won't stop talking. She's insulting me and my profession.”

Officer Marx snorted, but Ashley continued. She pointed at Derek's cell. “Please. Put her over there. I'm begging you.”

“We don't do co-ed lockups,” Marx said.

“But she's so mean!”

Meredith stared dumbly at the pair of them.

Ashley dropped her gaze as she sniffled. She peered to the left at Meredith, a glare on her face. As she made a show of wiping her face, she mouthed, “Work with me,” behind her hand. A vague thrill of hope spiraled into Meredith's chest. When Ashley looked back up at Officer Marx, a fresh sprawl of tears glossed her cheeks. “Please, I can't stand this another minute. It's abusive is what it is.”

“You're a dirty, dirty... whore,” Meredith said. “I...” She struggled for vehemence when, at the moment, she felt nothing but gratitude. “I hate you.”

“See?” Ashley said. “She's nasty to me, and I... My mother...” She sniffed. “I can't.”

“Well,” said Officer Marx. “I guess I could move you...”

“Oh, yes,” said Ashley. She gazed at the far cell. Derek still had his back turned. Meredith had no idea if he was even listening. Ashley licked her lips as she wiped at her tears. “He looks good enough to eat. Sex is like bonbons when it comes to grief.”

Officer Marx swallowed. “Or her,” he said. He gestured at Meredith. “Come on,” he said with a glum sigh. Meredith stepped toward the door. He unlocked it with his key and frogmarched her across the hall to Derek's cell. “If you cause any problems, I will make **sure** you stay in here the whole day,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “And keep the racket down, for crying out loud.”

“Do you know when we'll be arraigned?” Meredith said.

Officer Marx shrugged as he slid the door shut and locked Meredith in with Derek. “Maybe another hour or two.” He seemed unsympathetic. And unspecific. She couldn't bring herself to care.

Officer Marx left them there. The exterior door rattled as he closed it, and they were alone again. Just the three of them. Ashley's waterworks ceased in seconds. She rolled her eyes, and she went to sit on the far bench. Her heels plinked as she moved.

“Thank you,” said Meredith.

Ashley shrugged. “The subtle approach clearly wasn't working with you two.”

Meredith blinked. Ashley smiled, and then she waved Meredith away with a flick of her bony hand. Meredith swallowed. Derek hadn't turned, hadn't even acknowledged her presence.

Meredith walked toward him. His lips set in a grim line. He stared at the corner of the cell with a dark, churning gaze.

She sat down on the bench next to him. Her shoulder brushed his back. He didn't lean into her. She twisted, and she touched him, palm to shoulder blade. He took a long, weary breath.

“Hey,” she said.

He said nothing.

She straddled the bench and pinched his trapezius muscles the way he'd been doing when he'd paced. She massaged, and she bit her lip when she realized how unyielding his body was being. How tense.

“I'm sorry I make you feel alone,” she said, trying to offer the first olive branch.

“You're sorry,” he said. “But you don't know why.”

She sighed. “I really don't, Derek. I'm not good at this. I'm not good at relationships.”

He stared at his knees, and he didn't turn around. “I wasn't trying to threaten you when I said those things,” he said.

“Well, then, what were you trying to do, Derek? Help me understand.”

She couldn't see his face, only the side; she was too far behind him. His temples fluttered as he clenched his jaw. Over and over. His grip worked at his pant legs by his knees. He rocked in his seat. Just a little. She wouldn't have seen it or felt it had she not been plastered against his back.

“I'm stuck in sort of a catch twenty-two,” he said, his voice low and rough.

“Why?”

“Because when I tell you these things, you get scared or angry, and you bolt. But if I don't answer the question, I'm being dodgy, and you don't trust me.”

She kissed the nape of his neck. She ran her fingers through his mussed hair. “Well, I can't run right now without becoming a fugitive of the law or whatever.”

He loosed a stilted chuckle. He turned on the bench. She shifted to accommodate him. He rested hip-to-hip with her, but he still stared at the floor. Not at her. And her throat ached when she realized, again, just how badly she'd messed him up. Unwittingly. She'd never understood before how much she affected him. She'd moaned and wailed and whined about him breaking her. He'd been a silent victim in thousands of pieces on the floor without her batting an eyelash.

“I want you to want me,” he said. “I don't need a house or chatty babies or a dog or a picket fence or any of the things you seem to think I want unconditionally. I just want a woman who wants me.” He swallowed, and he looked at her. His dark eyes churned with upset. “Except somewhere along the way, I fell in love with you, and you just...” He shrugged. “You don't. And now I'm...” His voice fell away. He shook his head, and he stared into space, like he was trying to tell the world no, no, no, and his words fell on deaf ears.

“What do you mean I don't?” she said.

“Love me,” he said. “I didn't sign the divorce papers, and I ruined it. You've never forgiven me for Addison. This is my fault.”

The distress and conviction in his gaze made her heart twist. “I forgave you everything, Derek. That's why we're even talking right now. And I do love you,” she said. The words came easily in light of how badly he seemed to need to hear them, and it was only then that she realized she hadn't said them ever again to him. Not since the first time.

He sucked in a breath like she'd stabbed him. “Meredith...”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Derek, I love you,” she said. “I always have. In a really, really big, pretend to like your taste in music, let you eat the last piece of cheesecake, hold a radio over my head outside your window way. That never changed, even when I wanted it to.”

He looked at the floor, swallowing and swallowing again, like he couldn't hold himself in if he spoke. He cleared his throat, but his voice seemed shaky when he spoke. “You haven't said that to me in a long time,” he said.

“I thought...” she said. She didn't know what she'd thought. She hadn't said the words. She'd been afraid. Petrified. And she'd ruined his sense of self-worth in the process. She kissed him because it seemed like the right thing to do. Her lips brushed his temple where his hair started. She leaned into him, wrapped her arms around him. She could do this. She could be what he needed if she tried. This was still fixable. The realization scared the crap out of her. “Never mind what I thought,” she said. “I wasn't fair to you.”

She'd been a flighty, hypocritical freak.

“You weren't?” he said. He blinked. And he stared at her like she'd been replaced with a pod person.

Her guilt compounded as she nodded. “You're right.”

“I am?”

“You've been there for me,” she said. “I wasn't there for you. I ran away. I'm sorry.”

“I'm...” He blinked at her again, flummoxed.

“I really want to fix this with you,” she said.

His eyes closed. His body shivered. His breaths tightened. “You do?”

“I do, yes,” she told him. “I saw a therapist, Derek. I'm whole and healed because I saw a therapist. She made me realize some things.” Belatedly.

“Wh...” he began, and then he lost his words in a gust of breath. He shook his head. He didn't speak, but he looked like he wanted to say something. To ask her. But he couldn't.

“I do bolt,” she said as she read his racing thoughts. “I totally bolt. And it's not your fault. It's my fault for letting my crappy life win, and that's not on you. Stop beating yourself up or whatever.”

He stared at her.

“I don't want to bolt anymore, Derek. I want to try. I saw a therapist because I want the happily ever after with you. I want it really badly. And I'm sorry I messed it up by running.”

She kissed him again. His body wavered with her touch. He was pliant in her arms. Staring. His breaths fell from him, soft and low and quick. He blinked again. Like he was in shock.

“I promise I'll try not to run,” she said.

He turned into her embrace. A huge, shaky breath poured out of him. He made a noise. Deep in his throat. Like a moan, but not quite. “Meredith,” he said. He pushed his face against her neck, and he breathed against her like he needed her body to live. His arms slipped around her torso, and he pulled her tight against him. Her chest tightened. Her ribs constricted. He rested, face in her hair, silent, for minutes. She let him be, let him do what he needed.

“I'll try, Derek,” she repeated. “I'll really, really try. And If I do run, you have my permission to chase me. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I promise I'll try not to push you,” he said. He swallowed, and then he added in a hoarse whisper, “I'm sorry I pushed.”

“It's okay,” she said, and she realized she meant it. She really meant it. It was okay. He'd pushed her because she ran and never told him she loved him. It was a vicious cycle that they needed to break. She had to break it. She closed her eyes and let his warmth relax away her fear. A sense of safety wrapped around her like a blanket. He always made her feel safe and perfect when he held her. Perfect despite her mountain of horrible, freaky flaws.

She shifted. He pulled away a few inches, and she pressed her ear against his chest. He settled his chin against her head. She listened to him breathe. He'd calmed down a bit.

“If you push me, I'll push back,” she decided. “I won't run.”

“Okay,” he said, his voice soft. He rubbed her back with the flat of his warm palm.

“I love you,” she said. Just for the hell of it. One more time. His body turned to putty in her arms. She tilted her head and kissed his throat. “So much, Derek. I mean it. Even if I don't say it, I mean it.”

He inhaled and exhaled. Her hair fluttered with the force of his breath at her scalp. “I love you, too,” he said, like he'd been waiting to say those words in that precise combination forever. His body shuddered, and he pressed his lips against the top of her head. He kissed her, and then he stilled.

She rested her hand on his shirt over his navel. “I'm glad we have that settled,” she said with a definitive nod, and he laughed. Really laughed. The sound of it made her muscles turn to Jell-O. Even though they were in a jail in a cell on a horrible, uncomfortable bench that smelled like urine, she didn't want to move.

“Me, too,” he said.

The soft sound of clapping broke Meredith from her trance. She looked up from Derek's chest. Ashley stood at the bars of the other cell, her green eyes watering over. Black smears of mascara ran down her cheeks. She sniffed. “Oh, I knew you guys could do it,” she said.

“I thought you said we were Sid and Nancy,” Derek said.

Ashley waved her hand and snorted. “Oh, hush. You needed a little jump start.”

“Right,” Derek said. “I suppose you're just a romantic at heart?”

She shrugged. “Hey, it gives me hope,” she said. “That Julia Roberts movie inspired me to be a better person.” Her bra strap fell off her shoulder, and she fixed it.

“Sure,” Derek said, and he nodded, though he didn't sound convinced.

Before Ashley could respond, the exterior door of the prison opened. The man who walked through was not Officer Marx. He was a big man. Not fat. Just big. And very tall. Maybe six foot three. He had a buzz cut and a pocked, rugged complexion that spoke of bad acne as a kid. A brown, bushy mustache covered his upper lip. “Derek Shepherd?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Derek said as the officer came to a stop beyond the bars.

“Well, damn, it **is** you.”

“I'm me, yes,” Derek said. He looked at Meredith. She shrugged. He looked back at the man.

“I'm Captain Shelby,” the big policeman said, his voice gruff. “One of my boys flipped his car in pursuit of a suspect last year. You performed life-saving surgery.”

Derek blinked. For a moment, his face remained blank. Meredith couldn't recall a surgery like that with Derek involved, but she watched recognition crawl across his face after moments. “Broken skull,” he said. “Epidural hematoma. Sergeant Dan... Motley?”

Captain Shelby grinned. “That's my man. He has four kids, a wife, and three dogs who are very grateful. He's off today, or he would say so himself.”

“I'm glad I could help,” Derek said.

Captain Shelby approached the lockup door. “I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I had no idea you were stuck in here until the paperwork hit my desk.” He turned his key, and the jail cell opened with a moan. “You're free to go.”

“You're just letting us go?” Derek said.

“Yes,” Captain Shelby said. “Your papers fell into the shredder. I don't know how it happened.”

“Hers, too?” Derek asked.

The captain nodded.

“Seriously?” Meredith said.

Derek jabbed her with his elbow. “She means thank you,” he said.

“Of course I mean thank you,” Meredith said. “I just...”

Captain Shelby winked. “Keep it in the bedroom next time. Okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Derek said. He stood, and Meredith followed. Meredith bit her lip as they stepped out of the jail cell. She sort of wanted to ask about Ashley.

Ashley waved them off. “I rack up priors like baseball cards. They wouldn't let me out.”

“Thank you,” Meredith said.

“Whatever.” Ashley shrugged.

Derek's hand rested at the small of Meredith's back. Captain Shelby ushered them out of the lockup area. A police officer waited with their coats, Derek's wallet, and Meredith's purse. They were out of the precinct in less than ten minutes.

They stood on the sidewalk out front. A police car chirped as it drove by. People bustled. Sunlight slanted onto the pavement, and Meredith squinted in the harsh light of freedom. Dozens of puffy clouds filled the blue sky, and the air smelled earthy and wet, but the good weather would hold on for at least another few hours. She knew from experience. Chilly wind blew through her hair, and she pulled against his body. He wrapped his arm over her shoulder, and she leaned into the warmth.

“I think I've never been more happy that you're a complete rock star at your job than I am right now,” she said.

“As long as you're only happy and not surprised,” he said.

She grinned. “And you're so modest, too.”

Derek shrugged and yawned. He tried to cover it with a palm against his face, but his whole body went rigid. She saw the flash of his teeth behind his hand. His eyes watered and squeezed shut. When he closed his mouth, he blinked, like he didn't really see anything. He barely had time to recover before another yawn rolled through his body. His weight on her shoulder increased, like he lost himself for a moment.

“You're crashing,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Where's your car?”

“Umm,” she said. She looked at her feet. She'd stuffed the papers in her purse on the way out of the precinct. He hadn't seen them. “Sort of impounded. I have to pick it up from the lot.”

Another jaw-cracking yawn rolled through him. He blinked. Tears fell down his face as he struggled to pull enough oxygen into his body to stay awake. “Can we get it later?” he said.

“Sure,” she said. “My place?”

“Wherever you want, Meredith,” he said in an echo of before. “I'm just happy it's with you.”

She blinked as he leaned against her. His eyelids drooped, and the dark circles under his eyes almost gave him a raccoonish look. But he was a cute raccoon. With a thick carpet of stubble, messy, uneven hair, a split-open forehead, and a pale face of exhaustion that rivaled alabaster. Well, more like a refugee raccoon, she supposed. She kissed him. For the first time, she knew he was hers. Her raccoon. Forever. As long as she wasn't an idiot.

Her fingers scrunched his wool coat. She would stop running. She would stop. She had to stop. “I'll call a taxi,” she said. She fumbled with her purse.

“Kay,” he muttered listlessly.

He stood beside her, staring at nothing while she called for a taxi. His chin tilted toward his chest. She wondered if he was even processing his surroundings anymore. A horn blared as a car tried to pull from the curb into traffic. The sound jarred him, and he flinched, blinking furiously.

She hung up her phone and stuffed it back into her purse. “It'll be here soon,” she said. She rubbed his arm. “They said five or ten minutes.”

“S'ok,” he said. “My eighth wind will hit soon.”

She snickered. “Sure it will.”

“Mmm,” he said. She watched, fascinated, as he ran through all his standard I'm-dying-but-I-need-to-finish-this-surgery techniques. He shook his head, and he used every ounce of his willpower to force wakefulness back into his expression. He shifted on the balls of his feet, and he blinked. He stretched his arms and flexed his fingers. He rolled his neck. When he finished, he looked a bit more alive, but not much.

“So, we're officially not criminals,” he said.

“Nope,” she said. “I'm sort of glad.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? You sounded indifferent before.”

“We would have been fine except for the part where we had to explain to the Chief why we suddenly had rap sheets for public indecency.”

“Oh,” Derek said. “Yeah, there's that.”

She bumped her hip against him and smiled. “Plus, you looked a little panicky.”

He frowned. “I was not.”

“Admit it,” she said. “You wilt at the prospect of breaking the law.”

“Hey,” he said. He kissed her. “It took two to break that law, and I was definitely one of two.”

“Touche or whatever,” she said.

“Besides,” he said. “If I'm going to break the law, that's the way to do it. More law-breaking, I say.”

“You realize we're two for two on getting caught? We're pretty crappy miscreants.”

“Best three out of five?” he said. “Some things take a lot of practice.”

“But what if we fail on try three?”

“Such a pessimist,” he said.

“Realist,” she said. “The universe hates us.”

“I don't know,” he said. “Me and the universe are getting along right now, I think.”

She snorted. “Derek, your car is scrap. And we just got out of jail.”

He looked at her. “But Beth's alive, and I'm with you.”

Simple. To the point.

She blinked as she watched his expression. Intensity morphed into a twinkle-eyed smile. He leaned into her space and kissed her once, twice. She swallowed as he pulled away. He seemed lighter despite his exhaustion. More springy than he'd been mere hours ago, even before they'd been arrested.

“I'm just saying don't rule out future delinquency,” he said.

“I'll keep that in mind,” she said.

He nodded. “You do that.”

The yellow-and-black streak of a passing taxi caught her attention. She held up her hand and took a step. The taxi's brake lights flashed deep red, and the car pulled to the curb. They walked to meet it.

“613 Harper Lane,” she told the driver as she settled on the foamy seat next to Derek. The cabin smelled like someone had dumped a bottle of Pine-Sol on the floor mats, and she wrinkled her nose, but at least the cab ride would be quick. She would live. “It's in Queen Anne Hill,” she continued. The driver nodded as she slammed her door shut and buckled her seat belt.

Derek blinked once. Twice. His head tilted forward as the car crept away from the curb. She heard a thunk as his forehead hit the window. His cheek slipped along the glass with a squeak. Before the cab reached cruising speed, his breaths evened. Fog crawled along the window, tracing his exhalations. She watched him sleep as the taxi driver took them perilously down the 99, cursing and weaving. Derek didn't budge. As they pulled up to the house, she paid the driver using hushed tones, and then she brushed Derek's shoulder.

“We're at my place,” she said. “Derek?”

He twitched. “Hmm?”

“Wake up for a few minutes,” she told him.

“Kay,” he said. He wiped his face with his hands and blinked. He peered muzzily at her, and then at his surroundings. The sight of her house seemed to push some energy into his laggard brain. He scrabbled against the slippery leather seats, but he managed to get free of the car without too much trouble. He followed her, silent, as she strode up the front walk. She unlocked the door. He lumbered up the stairs on autopilot while she set her purse down and shut the door.

She caught up to him as he entered her bedroom. On the threshold, he stopped, and a bout of sentience slammed into him. He blinked, and he stared at her bedroom as though he didn't know it well. Silence hovered in the house. A dog barked outside. The roar of a passing car vibrated along the walls.

“What?” she said.

“Should I be on the sofa?” he said. “We didn't really talk about--”

“I thought we were just being,” she said.

“We are, I just...”

Didn't want to push. She read the words on his face, though he didn't say them. She melted. He'd never slept on the couch unless they'd had sex on it. He really was trying. Even half dead with exhaustion and ready to collapse on command.

She gripped his shoulders and squeezed. “The bed is fine,” she said. She gave him a nudge. His sudden tension leaked away, and he stepped onto the area rug by the bed. The floorboards groaned with his weight.

He shuffled to his side of the bed, and she smiled. His side. His. He hadn't had a side in her bed in a long time. She watched as he slipped off his coat. He didn't even bother to hang it up. He let it fall into a heap on the floor. He took off his black sweater next, and he unbuttoned his blue shirt. No hesitation. No awkwardness. Nothing that told her he hadn't done this in front of her in a long freaking time. He'd come home.

“Do you want me to put out clean sheets?” she said.

“I don't care,” he said.

“Do you want some ibuprofen?” she said. She pulled a fresh t-shirt from the closet.

“Um,” he said. He pulled a hand back through his messy hair. “I'm fine right now. Thanks.”

She inhaled as his shirt slipped to the floor, revealing lean but toned shoulders and arms. A sleek, pale back. Muscles that slid underneath his skin. Muscles she wanted to touch. But he didn't make jokes about free shows or stripping. He didn't smile. He didn't do anything but stare at the bed like he wanted to fall into it. He kicked off his leather shoes. He reached for the buckle on his belt.

She went to her drawer and pulled out a familiar pair of fuzzy gray pajama bottoms. They were way too big for her, but she'd found if she pulled the drawstrings tight and folded up the ankle cuffs, they were functional. She'd slept in them from time to time. They'd helped. Sometimes, at night, when she'd needed something safe. They'd helped.

Her breaths sped as she turned back to the bed and saw his profile, lean, toned, and nude save for his boxer briefs. He had a thin body. Long legs. A tapering torso. She stared at his lines, and a tremor ran through her body. Hers. As long as she wasn't stupid.

“Here,” she said, as she closed the space between them. Warmth radiated from his naked skin.

He looked at her. “What?” he said, nonplussed.

“These are yours,” she said.

He took the bundle from her. Their hands brushed. A sleepy smile overtook him. “I was wondering where these were.”

“I kept them.”

“Thief,” he said as he pulled them on.

“Just call me Bonnie,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Bonnie?”

“You know,” she said. She rubbed his arm. “And Clyde?”

He smirked, and then he kissed her. “We're not Bonnie and Clyde,” he said.

“You're the one who wanted to break the law some more.”

“I'm more a fan of nudity than I am larceny,” he said. “Besides, you said we were crappy miscreants.”

“Well,” Meredith said. “They did die, didn't they? That's pretty crappy of them.” The tired glaze on his face creased into a frown, and she grinned, sheepish. “Okay, yeah. Bad metaphor or whatever.”

“I'll forget you said that one,” he said. He tied the drawstrings on his pajama pants, and he sat on the bed. He yawned. The mattress creaked with his weight. “Hmm.”

“What?”

“Missed this,” he said. He stretched out on his back and pulled the sheets over his body. He closed his eyes half way, and his breaths rasped with the deep undertones sleep in moments, though he didn't sleep. Not quite. Not yet.

She stripped to her underwear and put on the t-shirt she'd liberated from the closet. He watched with a silent gaze. His eyelids hung low over his eyes. The vague blue twinkle and the small curl of his lips told her he liked the view, but again, he didn't make comments.

She followed him under the covers. She pushed against his warm body and melded along his length. She kissed his bare chest. The scent of his body soothed her. He kissed her hair.

“If we're not Sid and Nancy, and we're not Bonnie and Clyde,” she said, “Then who are we?”

“Just us, I suppose,” he said.

“Just us,” she agreed. “Just being?” She blinked as a yawn tore through her.

His chest rose and fell with a sigh. He stroked her arm. “Just being.”

He met her gaze for a long moment. Muted sunshine slanted through the window, making his face pale and haggard against the dark swath of his hair and stubble. The wound under his hairline had scabbed in a crusty red line, and a big bump had formed like an egg underneath his skin. His hair stuck up in clumps. He looked like he'd been thrashed and beaten and left for dead. Except he smiled. A wide, refreshing smile that made her smile, too. Not an ounce of stress creased his features.

“In a few hours, I want my sex and kissing,” he said, his voice a low rumble.

“Deal,” she said.

His eyes shut, and he didn't open them again. She watched him sleep for several minutes before the sight of him blurred. The room fuzzed away. For a long time, she stayed aware of his arms wrapped around her. The heat of his skin against her. The reassuring scent of his body by her side, marking her sheets, and making her home feel like home again.

Shortly after, she slipped into dreams along with him.

~finis


End file.
